Bridgewater students learn about forestry and wildlife

   PRESQUE ISLE, Maine – Twenty-nine students, teachers and chaperones from the Bridgewater Grammar School visited the Edith and Laurence Park Tree Farm June 7 for a hands-on program about forestry and wildlife. Instructors were Dotty Dudley and Laurence Park.     Forest management provides a variety of forest types and age classes benefiting a broader range of plants and animals. The students’ age groups were kindergarten through grade six, and the program was given at that level.
For instance, the difference between spruce and fir is that when you grasp them with your hands, fir is soft and spruce is pricklier. Thus, the “friendly” fir and “spiky” spruce. Branches on maple and ash trees are opposite opposed to alternate. Lichens are composed of algae and fungus, and can be remembered by “Allie” algae and “Freddie” fungus. You can also tell the age of a tree by counting the growth rings or by the branch swirls.
On display was bird’s eye and curly maple, odd shapes of trees that were made into useful things such as a three-legged table and door handle.
At the wildlife display was a mounted fisher, a mink pelt, bones and skull of moose and deer. On the tour, students identified a “wildlife tree” with cavities created by the Palliated woodpecker. Under a plantation of White Spruce was a squirrel’s cache of Norway Spruce cones and a squirrel’s dinner table. It had apparently brought them across the trail from the Norway spruce plantation. One of the highlights was to see several trees that a bear had scratched.
Help was needed to measure around a pine tree that was 11 feet in circumference.
Logger safety was demonstrated by one of the students wearing chainsaw safety chaps and hardhat with ear protection and face screen.
This type of program is sponsored by the Central Aroostook Soil and Water Conservation District and is available to schools or groups and adapted to their needs. For more information, call Laurence Park at 764-0582.